Pokerstars continues to make the most revenues of the licensed online poker providers in New Jersey, but a resurgent partypoker under GVC’s ownership is taking a strong position in tournaments.

Overall, New Jersey cash game traffic slid slightly over the last week, but the Sunday Major tournaments looked healthy albeit with some overlays still apparent.

New Jersey’s shared liquidity deal with Delaware and Nevada should give a boost to WSOPsince they are the only New Jersey operator also in Nevada, but 888poker may well also benefit since they share a player pool with WSOP which uses 888’s poker platform.

There is barely a hair’s breadth separating partypoker cash game traffic from that at WSOP/888, but party’s emphasis on tournaments is showing through in better revenue figures. November’s figures from the New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement (DGE) showed the partypoker/Borgata partnership generating $576,439 from online poker while the Caesar’s/888 team brought in $539,897.

PokerStars partners with the Resorts Casino and it generated $693,463 from online poker. That’s around 2 percent more than if revenues were allocated strictly on cash game market share, implying that even if tournament revenues are facing tough competition from partypoker, revenues from Spin & Go’s more than make up the difference.

And so to US Poker’s weekly look back at the cash game and tournament trends in the New Jersey online poker market.

New Jersey’s online poker operators

New Jersey has seven online poker sites operating on four separate networks.

During the week of December 12-18, New Jersey online poker sites averaged 259 cash game players.

Peak traffic numbers were around 600 players, 3 percent down on the previous week.

Here’s how those players are distributed across the four online poker networks.

*Cash game traffic data provided by PokerScout.com. Collected on December 19, 2017.

Pala Poker

Seven-day rolling average: 1 cash game player – no change compared to previous seven days

Evaluating cash game traffic trends

At this time of the year, day-to-day traffic is heavily impacted by seasonal factors such as the weather and whether Christmas Day falls on a weekday or at the weekend.

This year December 25 is a Monday, which may mean that traffic takes a hit as players spend the weekend before the holiday at the shops instead of sat inside hunched over their computer screens.

The proof will be in the numbers, but the short-range weather forecast indicates a rainy weekend which may ameliorate the impact of family demands to go out on Saturday and Sunday.

For the week that just ended, there are few conclusions to draw. Year-on-year New Jersey average cash game traffic remains well below the 2016 December 27 figure of 400 occupied seats, but there is still scope for a pre-New Year surge–as a relatively small market New Jersey traffic can be highly volatile.

Tournament Report: A look at the Sunday Majors

Three of the four online poker networks host a signature Sunday tournament:

The Borgata/partypoker/MGM online poker network offers a $40,000 guarantee tournament. The tournament has a $215 buy-in.

WSOP.com and 888poker network also host a $215 buy-in, $40,000 guaranteed tournament that it has dubbed, “The Warrior.”

PokerStars NJ hosts the Sunday Special, a $200 buy-in with a guarantee of $45,000.

*Pala Poker doesn’t offer a signature Sunday tournament at this time.

Pala has introduced its largest guaranteed tournaments yet with a thrice-weekly $2,000 Guaranteed Pala Mega. The buy-in is $30, and the events run on Tuesday, Thursday, and Sunday each week at 7.30 p.m.

Major tournament results for December 17, 2017

The week passed without a major tournament series on offer, so tournament revenues depended on the attractiveness of the standard weekly schedule.

Partypoker remains the top tournament provider in New Jersey. Its Sunday major, the $200 + $15 $40,000 guaranteed event, garnered a field of 242 last weekend, 105 entries more than the PokerStars $200 Sunday Special, despite the Stars event offering a $5,000 higher guarantee.

Only WSOP/888’s Sunday $40k Warrior showed an overlay with both partypoker and PokerStars comfortably exceeding their guarantees.

Here’s a look at the total number of entries for the largest tournament held on each of the three main online poker networks in New Jersey events:

Joss Wood

Joss holds an English degree from the University of Birmingham and also earned a master’s degree in organisational development from the University of Manchester.
Though his primary focus is on international regulated online gambling markets, Joss also follows the legal New Jersey online gambling industry and writes extensively about sports betting. Previously he worked as the editor of Poker Industry Pro in addition to having served in the British Army, worked in business and finance, and played online poker professionally for seven years.